


Mistakes Were Made

by entanglednow



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Egg Laying, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Idiots in Love, Kink Meme, M/M, Pining, Pregnancy, Protective Aziraphale, Romance, Snake Anatomy, Snake Crowley, Unfertilised Eggs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21984091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: In which Crowley accidentally gets himself pregnant, and Aziraphale won't stop being supportive.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 194
Kudos: 1326
Collections: Crowley's Demonic Side, Good Omens Kink Meme, Snakey Bits!Crowley





	Mistakes Were Made

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a really short, fun fill for the 'Crowley accidentally gets himself pregnant, shenanigans ensue' prompt. But I think it's fairly obvious how that turned out. I have no excuses at all.

They say that boredom breeds mischief. But in Crowley's opinion mischief bludgeons boredom to death in self-defence. And no jury would convict.

Really, boredom isn't the only reason he's currently a long sprawl of nudity and arousal on his bed, but it played a big part. He's come half a dozen times already, but his dick is still stiff and red, the sensitive head leaking over his slippery fingers. There's still a sweet, shivery edge to every orgasm, that says his body is more than happy to go again, and again, and the rumpled bedding is covered in messy lines, smears, and drips of come. He's left it that way on purpose, he likes the way his knees slide through it, the way his tacky fingers fist in the sheets, it makes him feel debauched, makes him feel filthy and impossible to satisfy.

It's good, it's so good, but he wants something deeper, something harder, an eagerness to abuse himself, to be flushed and sore and _aching_ with his own overindulgence. 

Crowley's body knows what he wants, sex changing straight after he comes, the heavy ache of balls and cock melting into the deep, hungry clench of a cunt, already slick and wet with arousal. He hums approval, and shoves two sticky fingers straight inside himself, while the other hand works hard and fast against his newly acquired clit. It's all very fucking amazing and good. There's nothing like dragging your repeated orgasms out for an afternoon, or an entire day, or a weekend if you're well hydrated.

He ends up facedown on the bed, some unfathomably long and infinitely pleasurable stretch of time later, both arms limp and twitching, cunt and clit sore and over-sensitive. This really was the best idea ever, and after all that hard work he thinks he deserves a nap.

When he wakes up, four days later, he has a stiff neck, and a weirdly familiar craving for twelve boiled eggs.

"Aw, fuck."

~

Aziraphale is in the back of the bookshop, jacket exchanged for a cardigan that makes him look soft and approachable, touchable even. He's carrying three books and a steaming beverage, cocoa, if the faint taste of it on the air is to be believed. He always looks like he belongs here, content among the stacks and shelves that he's spent years filling. And, not for the first time, Crowley is stupidly grateful that Adam saw fit to put the place back the way it was. Well, very nearly almost the way it was.

Crowley leans himself artistically against a bookshelf, so he can watch the angel potter around for half a minute, lost in his own head, muttering quietly to himself about bindings. Until Aziraphale finally looks up at him and smiles.

"Oh, Crowley, I wasn't expecting to see you until tomorrow."

Aziraphale being pleased to see him isn't exactly a new thing, but since the failed Armageddon the angel seems far more willing to show it, to admit to it, and Crowley isn't quite used to it yet. It still manages to surprise and delight him. And coming over unexpectedly is always the best way to encourage more of it. 

Normally, after getting himself into this particular mess, Crowley would disappear for a few months, to some cave or abandoned house somewhere in the middle of nowhere, do the whole thing without telling anyone, or admitting to anything. But it hasn't been long since the world nearly ended, and he knows that Aziraphale would worry, that he'd feel abandoned and he'd want to know why, and then he'd be hurt that Crowley didn't just tell him the truth, no matter how ridiculous and embarrassing it was. So he's pretty much resigned himself to a horribly awkward confession here - the angel deserves the horribly awkward confession, so he's going to get it.

Crowley levers himself off the bookshelf, hands instinctively pushing into his pockets as he slinks closer.

"Yeah, so, something came up, thought I'd swing by and, uh, tell you." He should just blurt it out, be honest about it, it would probably be easier. Talking around it for the next twenty minutes is going to accomplish nothing. "That I may have gotten myself pregnant."

Aziraphale's cocoa sloshes over the side of his cup, and splashes wetly on the floor. It's not the first time Crowley has ever made him spill something, but it never fails to be satisfying, because his careful, fussy angel is always so reluctant to make a mess. Aziraphale frowns at the dribble on the floorboards, until it evaporates, possibly out of shame. Before he focuses on Crowley again, a little frown working its way between his eyebrows. As if he suspects that Crowley had done that on purpose.

"I'm sorry, what? I'm sure I misheard you," the angel says faintly. "I thought you said you'd -"

"Gotten myself pregnant," Crowley provides again, he even nods this time to help make the point. "Yep."

The angel blinks, as if he was genuinely expecting to have his earlier mistake corrected, and doesn't know what to do with a confirmation instead. There's a slim possibly that his slowly listing mug is going to spill on the floor again, before the angel takes a breath and rights it abruptly. He does put the books he's still holding down on the nearest available surface though, almost certainly so they're out of range of further spills.

"And when you say that you mean -"

Ugh, yes, Crowley should probably explain this whole thing. He tries to get his hands deeper into his pockets, quickly realises that's physically impossible.

"That I jerked off, then changed sex, and then fingered myself without cleaning up. Stupid of me."

"Ah." Aziraphale seems to be picturing that, which Crowley didn't actually intend, that was not his intention. He wasn't trying to draw a picture of the whole sordid affair, he was passing on need to know information about the exact mechanics of his error. 

The angel clears his throat, before Crowley has time to be horribly embarrassed by it all, and possibly attempt some sort of helpful re-phrasing. Which, knowing him, will probably not be helpful, and will likely make everything sound worse. 

"So when you say that you'd 'gotten yourself pregnant,' you mean that in the very literal sense?" Aziraphale realises.

Crowley winces, because, yes, that is exactly what he means, and something about having the angel repeat it back to him makes it sound sort of sordid and irresponsible - more irresponsible anyway.

"Yep, complete accident of course, my fault entirely." This is what he gets for having what amounts to an orgy all by himself. He literally only has himself to blame.

"I mean, forgive me for asking the obvious question, but you do know you can leave out the reproductive parts, don't you?" Aziraphale seems bewildered that this hasn't occurred to him at any point in the last six thousand years, and Crowley can see his frown getting deeper, as if he's rethinking all his previous assumptions about Crowley's intelligence. 

Crowley glares at him, because now he's genuinely offended. Yes, obviously he knows not to bother with the reproductive parts. Because he'd wager he's seen more things getting other things pregnant than Aziraphale has over the years. He does know how it all works, thank you very much. And it's not like it's ever been a problem when he's slept with humans, who, without the important inside parts, can't get him pregnant in any position or configuration, no matter how hard they try. Which, on the whole, has been pretty lucky for him, because he's done a lot of stupid things while drunk.

"Yes, thank you for that lesson in human biology. But my bodily fluids aren't human are they, they're occult, and that apparently bypasses all the messy corporation stuff and wakes up all the snake parts that are usually more than happy to remain dormant and entirely metaphysical. N'yeah, next thing you know my body decides it has a pressing desire to start making eggs. Which I now have to deal with." 

Aziraphale seems to decide abruptly that he needs to be sitting down for this. Crowley follows him to the backroom. Aziraphale takes the chair with a slow, measured sink, and Crowley takes the sofa with an untidy sprawl. He gives the angel a minute to work out whatever he needs to say, because whatever it is Crowley will probably hate it, but he'll also probably deserve it, and will weather it accordingly.

It seems to take a while, Aziraphale refills his mug, opens his mouth several times, shakes his head, and drinks half his new, delicious beverage, before he finally seems to have his thoughts in order.

"Really, Crowley, this seems reckless even for you," he says at last. It manages to be accusing, but only just. Mostly it's still hovering over bewildered and concerned. But at least it hasn't crossed over into 'aghast' yet. "What are you going to do?"

"Ah, it's not as bad as you think. It's happened to me before, a few times, half a dozen." Crowley scrunches his mouth and caves to honesty. "Alright eight to be exact." He should probably have learned his lesson by now, but it's easy to get distracted during a particularly debauched session with himself - and it's not like he's getting himself pregnant every time.

Aziraphale looks thoroughly horrified. Then strangely and unexpectedly hurt over what's left of his cocoa.

"You never told me that you have - er - offspring?"

Crowley pulls a horrified face of his own. "Oh, no, Satan no, they're unfertilised eggs, angel. They don't actually get, y'know, inseminated by my own - I can't produce viable offspring with myself. That would - that would be weird." 

Granted, the first time it had happened, in ancient Egypt, he hadn't known that yet. He hadn't even known he _could_ get pregnant, after all, he was a non-corporeal demon with corporeal snake form, and a patched together human corporation. Not even a thousand years of experience carting the last of those around yet. So hadn't that been a kick in the fucking balls when he'd finally realised what had happened. He'd spent two months utterly terrified by the thought of there being actual weird demon spawn he'd have to take care of. Then another miserable, panicked week as a snake when his human body didn't fit any more. Then a deeply uncomfortable early morning spent laying three watermelon sized eggs, and then another two days panicking over them, torn between whether he should be trying to keep them warm somewhere away from predators, or burying them in the dirt and leaving them, like some species of snake, or turtle, or _something_. Until he'd worked out that there was nothing inside them. That they were in fact empty of life. 

Honestly, Crowley's still embarrassed to this day about how utterly clueless he'd been about all of it. And he hadn't said a fucking word to Hell about his cock up - about his almost literal cock-up. Of course, he's smarter now, and Hell had quickly developed its own hasty and miserable sex education course, thankfully due to someone else's far more dramatic biological fuck-up.

"It just sort of kick-starts the process, and I get to grow the eggs without the, y'know, occult spawn part."

"Oh, oh, well that is a relief I suppose." Aziraphale looks as if he's still not sure about anything, but is determined to soldier on and be supportive anyway.

"Right? Ugh, it's just an inconvenience to be honest." Crowley throws his feet up on the sofa, and Aziraphale declines to glare at him for it, for once, which isn't like him at all. Crowley must have thrown him more than he'd thought. "That's eight weeks of irritability, weirdly territorial quirks, and the persistent need to eat like I'm trying to win a bloody prize for it."

Aziraphale has refilled his cocoa - though Crowley suspects it's not entirely cocoa any more. He's probably decided that he deserves the extra fortification, and to be honest Crowley can't blame him for that. It's not every day you find out your best friend has accidentally knocked himself up.

"Eight weeks doesn't seem very long?" the angel muses.

Crowley frowns, because it's always felt plenty long enough from his end.

"Well I'm not doing the whole growing an entirely new being part inside myself. That mostly happens in the eggs, after I've done the whole popping them out thing. Or it would if they were actually fertilised I suppose." He hadn't wanted to look into it too closely.

"Still, I'd been assuming it was somewhat analogous with human pregnancy."

"I'm a demon, Aziraphale, exactly how long do you think we'd last in Hell if we went through pregnancy like humans? You think we could spend the last, what, four months basically waddling around Hell like grounded ducks, organs compressing, bones shortening, being slowly consumed from within by our offspring." And all of that while surrounded by hellfire, hellhounds, murderous hell insects, sulphurous fumes, and a hundred demons who want to see you to suffer on any given day of the week. Not that there are days of the week in Hell, mostly because Hell doesn't believe in weekends.

Crowley pulls a face just thinking about it.

Aziraphale frowns at him. "I don't think human pregnancy is quite as bad as you make it sound." 

"It's the big heads," Crowley reminds him, because he's had this complaint before at many a birth. "The walking upright and the big heads, terrible design flaw. Someone should have spotted that in the early drafts, taken it back to the drawing board."

Aziraphale shoots him a pointed look, to which he feigns complete innocence. Questioning things, him? Never. wouldn't dream of it.

"It's a beautiful act of creation," Aziraphale says, as if he'd read it on a pamphlet he'd been given, and had been told firmly that it should be described as such.

Crowley pulls a face at him. Because he hates when the angel does that. 

"That also happens to be terribly inconvenient, exhausting and often dangerous," Aziraphale allows, grudgingly. "So am I to understand you go about the process in a slightly more _robust_ fashion?"

"Well, I've never been involved in anyone else's process, so I can only share mine. But I guess robust is a fair description. I know I gradually become more venomous, and then my snake form triples in size near the end. I think it's so that once I, y'know, pop the eggs out, I can immediately and aggressively defend them from other demons if necessary."

"Really?" Aziraphale actually sounds intrigued now. He's wearing his 'I am learning things and they are fascinating me,' face. Crowley decides this is probably an improvement from accusations and tutting. Though everything is an improvement from accusations and tutting. Aziraphale is only allowed to tut at other people, not him.

"I mean, I've never actually had to defend mine, obviously. But I guess that's how it works, never actually had any eggs that weren't duds." And he'd never actually had to do it while in Hell.

"Honestly, you still only have yourself to blame," Aziraphale reminds him. Which, yes, Crowley's aware of that, he is.

"Though they are probably very nutritious," he offers.

" _Crowley_!"

"Oh, like you haven't eaten worse," Crowley protests.

To which the angel does not reply, he just downs more of his Irish cocoa and makes sounds of not entirely convincing disagreement.

~

Crowley stocks up on food, which is inconvenient, because his expensive fridge isn't supposed to have food in it, it's supposed to just be for show. Having food in it ruins the aesthetic he's trying to accomplish.

Aziraphale has more than a few opinions on the sort of food Crowley should be buying, like a man finally capable of sharing his first love with a friend. The angel doesn't even bother to hide how excited he is at the prospect of feeding him, of sharing meals now, since Crowley doesn't generally eat that much with him as a rule, he normally just tastes things to make Aziraphale happy. Alright, it's not entirely to make Aziraphale happy, it's also so he can lean over the table, open his mouth, and have Aziraphale slip his own fork inside with a fond, indulgent smile. Crowley didn't have the heart to tell him that tasting wasn't the point here. He's mostly in it for the calories now, and he was going to swallow everything whole anyway. It was easier, and faster, chewing is for people who have nothing better to do.

Still his fridge is now full of expensive, interesting things which Aziraphale deeply approves of, and the whole ridiculous shopping expedition had taken _hours_ , forcing them to have breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Which had made the angel visibly happy. So Crowley couldn't regret a single second of it. 

It had also, as a nice bonus, gotten Aziraphale to come to his flat afterwards. To help him put the food away, and to argue about combinations that worked particularly well (none of which Crowley was intending to follow later, what with the swallowing everything whole.) But now they're sitting in his stark, minimalist kitchen, drinking tea and eating cake, as if it isn't the first time they've relaxed together at his flat. Crowley decides this is important friendship progress that can't be discounted, even if his pregnancy is mostly to blame. Honestly, it seems to have given him carte blanche to spend as much time with Aziraphale as he likes, because the angel is so very interested in everything at the moment. And if nothing else, all the food in his fridge just gives him one more excuse to invite the angel back to his place.

He should learn how to cook, why has he never learned how to cook? Aziraphale would probably be impressed and everything. He'd sit in his kitchen and eat something Crowley had made for him. That's definitely a thought to revisit later.

Crowley hasn't failed to notice that the angel has also been eyeing his body curiously for the last few days. Which is exactly the sort of unexpected and thrilling attention he would have killed for any time in the last six thousand years. The sort of thing that might give a stupid demon hope. But he suspects the angel is just waiting for Crowley to actively look pregnant. Which isn't quite as sexy, or at least, not sexy in the specific way he was hoping for.

"I suppose it won't be too long before it becomes obvious, since your term is so short?" Aziraphale muses curiously. Though it's really more of a question, phrased politely enough that Crowley can ignore it if he wants to. If he considers it rude - as if there are any indelicate or frankly obscene questions the angel could ever ask that he wouldn't answer for him. If he genuinely wanted to know. Crowley's actually had very specific fantasies that start that way, with Aziraphale asking filthy, obscene questions, and then squirming in aroused embarrassment while Crowley answered them in full.

Fuck, what was the angel saying again?

"Eh, no, it'll be about six weeks or so, til it starts to make my corporation inconvenient to wear."

Aziraphale's cup pauses halfway to his mouth, he looks surprised. "So long, really?"

"You don't really want other demons knowing you're pregnant after all," Crowley points out.

Aziraphale frowns sharply, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him, how dangerous it would be to be pregnant in Hell. Or perhaps the very idea of anyone wanting to be pregnant in Hell.

"Ah, no, I didn't think of that, I can imagine not."

"By the time they're big enough to notice I'll pretty much want to be a snake full time anyway. Hard to shift 'em around inside a human body, the size they get." Hard to shift them around inside a snake body too, if he's being honest. He's mostly just a big, irritated stretch of uncomfortable misery for the last few days.

"Oh, so you'll, er, give birth - or lay eggs, in snake form then?"

Crowley nods. "Can't really help it. You ever see an egg roughly ten inches in diameter come out of a human being?" He refrains from measuring it out with his hands, just for added effect, even though he'd quite like to, just to make the angel pull that face he has for when Crowley's being indelicate on purpose. Which is always more fun than being indelicate by accident.

Aziraphale pauses in the act of eating the last slice of cake. He seems to be picturing it anyway, and very obviously blaming Crowley for making him. He politely finishes what's in his mouth, before he replies.

"I have not." The 'and I sincerely hope I never do' is perfectly audible at the end there, even if the angel is too polite to say it.

Crowley can't help but smile at his angelic composure. He decides this is the perfect time to switch to wine, retrieves a bottle and a glass from the side, and spills one into the other.

Aziraphale makes a complicated, protesting noise and reaches a hand out, lays it on Crowley's arm, his eyebrows have canted up sharply in alarm.

"Crowley should you really be...?" Aziraphale looks between Crowley and the wine, then makes a significant facial expression.

It takes Crowley a moment to work out what on earth the angel is trying to convey.

"They're not fertilised," he reminds him, mouth twitching upwards at Aziraphale's concern, which is oddly touching. "I'm free to consume alcohol to my heart's content. The very worst thing that will happen is that I will lay eggs with a very high alcohol content." And that would probably get you very drunk if you scrambled them and put them on toast - though he doesn't say that last part out loud. 

Aziraphale nods, absently, clearly a little embarrassed, as if he'd forgotten for a moment. He lets his hand fall.

"Of course, my mistake."

Crowley pours himself a very generous glass of wine.

~

He's worried a month into the whole business, that being in the bookshop will start to feel uncomfortable. He usually starts getting territorial about this point, uncomfortable in other people's spaces, hissing at anything that even mildly annoys him, or tastes unfamiliar. But the bookshop still feels as warm and inviting as ever, even though the place is, without doubt, Aziraphale's space. Drenched in his familiar paper and cocoa-flavoured angelic tones, with a faint hint of wine and infatuated demon. Crowley supposes the oldest parts of himself must consider that safe, because he still falls asleep on the couch, listening absently to the rustle of book pages, the faint ticking of the small clock that Aziraphale keeps by his desk for atmosphere, and the click of windows heating in the sun. As the angel drags warm fingers gently through his hair, in a shivery, pleasurable rush of sensation -

- _what?!_

Crowley opens his eyes, and finds the angel carefully re-shelving books on the other side of the shop, quietly humming to himself.

Was that a dream?

It was probably a dream.

~

Aziraphale starts spending more time at his flat as well, which is both bewildering and immensely satisfying. Crowley had spent a few frustrating months since the world didn't end trying to think up increasingly elaborate scenarios to make the angel visit more often, but had mostly come up blank. If he'd known the answer all along had been 'get self pregnant,' he would have done it ages ago. That's not even an exaggeration, he would have done it in a second.

Though the angel does make a few pointed comments about how stark and gloomy Crowley's flat is, considering his condition, which leaves him sprawled out in his new lounge (which he may or may not have created purely for the angel's comfort) feeling oddly crushed, and briefly considering whether to be an ungracious host.

Until Aziraphale brings him fifteen hard-boiled eggs from the kitchen, and apologises. Crowley makes a sound of grudging forgiveness and swallows three whole, while the angel smiles tentatively at him. Crowley's whole body give a slow, rolling clench of satisfaction, which is something that it has no business doing.

There's an outside chance his body thinks Aziraphale is the father. His stupid, stupid body with all its non-existent, snake demon hormones keeps insisting, loudly and inconveniently, that it approves of this immensely, because Aziraphale is strong, and loyal, and clever, and he would crush anything that came near their spawn, then probably teach them something useful, like how to read.

Crowley tells his stupid demon hormones to shut the fuck up.

He eats more eggs, mostly to stop his mouth from doing anything stupid, like embarrassing him by making facial expressions that are unbecoming on a demon.

~

Five weeks in Crowley has taken to prowling, he hates the prowling part, it's like he's on high alert all the time, looking for a safe place to nest in, or preferably three safe places to nest in, just in case one is destroyed, or compromised. It leaves him checking the door of his flat a lot, cracking his spine constantly, and considering the food levels in the fridge, all while feeling a bit like ants are crawling all over - and possibly into - his skin. It's exhausting and definitely the worst part of the whole process.

Honestly, he's probably pretty unbearable right now. This is another reason he usually does this whole thing somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. So no one can witness him slowly going insane.

He's currently prowling between his kitchen and the plant room, berating the plants for not providing appropriate camouflage for him, for not making the effort when he needs them to, for being the wrong shape to curl around in general. He's also drinking far too much coffee, which he's starting to worry has given his plant lectures a jittery edge that he can't quite control. He'd flush all the caffeine out of his system, but he's been less willing to change his body since he got it pregnant - the stupid body that keeps insisting that he's interfering in its very important business.

Because his stupid body doesn't know that it's panicking over unfertilised bloody eggs.

An hour into his third lecture of the day, someone knocks at his door. Surprisingly his body doesn't immediately try and fling itself out of the nearest exit, which may or may not have been a window.

"That's Aziraphale isn't it?" he grumbles to his empty flat. Because he's smart enough to recognise a running theme, and self-aware enough to ignore it for the sake of his own sanity.

It is indeed Aziraphale, when he pulls the door open. The angel smiles at him in greeting, looking adorably windblown in a way that suggests he hasn't been making any effort to avoid the weather today, and didn't feel compelled to fix that in the lift. His soft, pale curls are untidy, cheeks faintly pink where his smile dents them. And Crowley can't help but feel like this is a special form of punishment just for him, that the angel is doing it on purpose, for some unknown reason. Aziraphale is also carrying two bags, bulky with contents that can't help but intrigue him. 

Crowley's physically incapable of doing anything other than pulling the door wide and encouraging him inside, so he does exactly that. And the angel is starting to look normal in his flat, as if he might belong here. If he wanted to. No pressure or anything. Crowley's only created three extra rooms on the off-chance he'd be comfortable in them, and turned the kitchen walls an inviting shade of blue, that absolutely doesn't remind him of Aziraphale's eyes.

"Crowley, how are you?" 

"M'fine," Crowley tells him, because he is - except for the prowling, which he's not planning to admit to any time soon. 

"I, umm, brought you something," Aziraphale says, with a weirdly nervous sort of enthusiasm. He looks like he wants to explain some more, but eventually seems to give up, simply holds out one of his bags with a hopeful expression.

Crowley stares at him, and then cautiously takes it. "You got me something?" he says, surprised. Aziraphale doesn't get him things. He can't remember the angel ever getting him anything, this is unprecedented behaviour. 

"I did, I was rather cross with myself, to be honest when it occurred to me that I've never really given you anything before. I thought I'd start making it up to you now. Now your situation has given me an opportunity."

Crowley's body wants to coil itself into a messy spiral at the words, and he sort of hopes his nonchalant lean makes that less than obvious. He eases the two bag handles apart and looks inside. There's material inside, bulky and soft looking, a blend of deep red and black folded together. 

"Towels?"

"You said you needed towels," Aziraphale says firmly. "For the - for the end."

He did, laying eggs was a messy affair when you were three times your normal size and didn't have any hands.

Crowley can't help himself, he reaches inside. They're very nice towels, just as soft as they look, fluffy and inviting, if one was inclined to use words like that. The colours are deep and thick, richly dark, perfect to hide the disgusting mess he's going to leave on them, when he squeezes three or four huge, slippery eggs out of himself.

"You realise I'm going to ruin them?" he says, and he doesn't mean to sound so apologetic, so guilty about it. But he usually throws them away afterwards. He never fancies keeping them, because no matter how aggressively he miracled them clean afterwards - well, he'd still know. 

"That does tend to happen," Aziraphale agrees, but he's smiling. "I hope they're alright. The colours I mean." 

Crowley's whole spine wants to elongate and push him towards the angel, and then curl tightly all the way around him. Neither of which he can do when he's human-shaped. He settles for a knee jiggle instead, because that's considerably less insane. He's being supportive, Crowley tells himself furiously, the angel's making the effort to be a good friend, that's all this is about. So if he could get a grip on himself that would be _fantastic_.

"Yeah, it's good, perfect, thanks." There, that's a sensible tone of voice, he even managed not to hiss at the end.

"Oh, also -" Aziraphale smiles widely, and opens the other bag he's holding, so Crowley can look inside.

There's a stack of egg boxes, a proper dozen in each of them, five boxes high.

The angel has brought him food. Satan help him. He's a demon who's five weeks pregnant, and the angel has brought him _food_. His stupid demon hormones claw frantically at his insides, and tell him in no uncertain terms to drag the angel inside his flat and keep him there, using any form of appeasement and/or bribery necessary. And then he should aggressively and immediately claim him, so everyone else knows that he's spoken for. Because he will be keeping him, thank you very much.

Crowley politely tells his hormones to fuck right off. 

~

His last visit to the bookshop, before he shuts himself in his flat for a week or so, they drink sweet, red wine long into the afternoon. Aziraphale complains about the customers that the coming Christmas season always brings, while Crowley commiserates, complaining absently about a presentation he never got to give to Hell, about improving the efficiency of greed as a temptation device. Not that anyone down there would have appreciated it anyway, or even understood it.

"I would have appreciated it," Aziraphale reassures him. Which makes Crowley smile and then hurriedly empty his glass to cover it.

It's getting late, and he should probably go, even though he doesn't want to. It's getting difficult to be person-shaped, and if he changes now then he'll be stuck here for good. Even if he wouldn't hate that. Even if he's fairly sure he would more more than happy to lay his eggs in this warm, familiar space. The taste of Aziraphale in every crevice of the place.

"Would you like it if I was - if I was there?" Aziraphale asks tentatively, quiet and clearly uncertain if he's overstepping. He doesn't have to explain for what, and Crowley can tell it's something he's been thinking about, even if he hasn't said anything until now. But he honestly can't tell if the angel's just trying to be a good friend, or if he actually wants to be there, and the uncertainty bothers him.

Crowley puts down his wineglass. He's just gone six and a half weeks, and there's a curve to his stomach now, the mass of his clutch no longer fitting between his two bodies, or in liminal space. Aziraphale seems oddly fascinated by it, for all that he's been trying to be subtle about it. Crowley doesn't mind, he kind of likes the angel staring if he's being honest. He likes the angel being fascinated by something that only he can do. 

"Do you - do you want to be?" he asks.

"Of course," Aziraphale says quietly, as if the answer should have been obvious. "As long as it's something you wouldn't find upsetting. I would like to be there for you, to be - to be supportive."

Crowley's glad he's no longer holding a glass, because he'd probably have broken it. He settles for digging sharp fingers into his own knee instead.

"I'm mostly going to be a snake for the next week and a half. I don't know if I'll be very good company." He always hates that part. Being unable to change back, being three times his normal size, it makes him feel trapped and irritable. And he's constantly knocking things over, because he can't control the twitchy thrashing of the last four feet of his tail that close to laying eggs. Also he won't be able to use his phone, because he won't have any fingers. He'll probably be unbearable. No, he'll almost certainly be unbearable.

"You're always good company, my dear," Aziraphale says, so firmly that it must be true.

"I'd like you there," Crowley says, the words stiff but honest, and it turns out he doesn't have to say anything else, doesn't have to explain it.

Aziraphale comes home with him.

~

Crowley decides on the plant room, in the end. He's already put the shutters down on the windows, and it's nicely dark, warm and secluded, all rich soil taste to hide his own. He's never had Hell interrupt him in here, never been contacted, never been threatened when he's among the plants. So it counts as safe, as safe as anywhere could be. He has to make the room three times the size it usually is, but hopefully the plants will forgive him - _hopefully the plants will forgive him._

It's three in the morning when he's woken by an awkward, rippling squeeze, deep inside his body. It's not his first time through this, so he doesn't wait to see if it goes away, he uncoils himself and takes a slow slither to that shady darkness.

Aziraphale looks up when he slides past the office, then sets the book he's reading down on Crowley's desk, and follows him.

Crowley is carefully curling himself into a series of wide loops, so he can watch what's going on, when Aziraphale settles down a few feet away from him.

"Do you need me to do anything?" the angel asks. He's positioned himself carefully so he doesn't get in the way, ready to do whatever Crowley tells him to do. He's trying not to fidget, hands carefully flat on his thighs, but he's clearly interested, determined, and judging by his hesitant, shaky smile, maybe even a little excited at the prospect of joining Crowley for something he's never experienced before. Crowley can't help but feel like he's going to go away disappointed, it's really not half as interesting as the angel probably thinks it's going to be.

"You could put some towels down for me, forgot that part." Crowley flicks his tail towards the soft stack of them by the door. There's always something he forgets before he loses access to his own hands. He can still perform miracles like this, but they tend to be less delicate, the taste of them a little sharp, a little more demonic than usual. He's loath to do too many of them around the angel for that reason. He knows the angel's miracles can sting if he puts too much enthusiasm into them.

Aziraphale carefully unfolds the towels he'd given Crowley weeks ago, and starts settling them on the warm, stone floor, around Crowley's large, glossy red mid-section.

"Bit lower down, angel, cloaca's where my tail starts, yeah? Just spread them out about there, the bloody things'll try and roll away otherwise. They might anyway, they come out slick and tend to knock into each other like giant, drunk snooker balls." Hands would be really useful about now, but apparently this was the one time his biology considered them inconvenient.

Crowley forgot to tell Aziraphale that he should probably have changed his trousers as well. The floor's going to be slippery afterwards, Crowley can't really help that, the liquid comes out with the eggs.

"Is that alright?"

"That's perfect, angel, thanks." 

Crowley's body has already started the slow, rippling squeezes that push everything downwards. It's uncomfortable and strangely invasive, but not really painful. It makes him want to roll from side to side, makes him want to fold and unfold himself in strange ways. A restless sort of impatience that's purely physical, an eagerness to get on with it. It occasionally makes him want to bite things too. He'd been a little worried about that, when he told the angel he could be here with him. He shouldn't have been though, he doesn't feel any desire to bite Aziraphale, in fact it's more the opposite, he wants Aziraphale to come closer so he can wrap his coils around him and make him stay, bite anything which comes near them both. Which, nice as it would be, he's not going to do, because he has self control, thank you very much.

"Is it difficult, the birth, ah, I mean, laying them?" Aziraphale looks worried, which is kind of sweet but completely unnecessary.

"Nah, it's pretty easy, especially this size. Half an hour or so of squeezing, bit of liquid, and they just sort of slide out." They've both been to plenty of human births together, and he knows that Aziraphale must have witnessed more than a thousand livestock ones by now. Though he supposes they're all designed to give birth on earth, where the ground isn't likely to grow teeth and swallow you, or suddenly erupt with hellfire.

"Oh, that does sound rather easy," Aziraphale says, sounding more than a little relieved.

"Can't spend too long out of commission," Crowley explains. "Never know how long you're gonna have a quiet bit of Hell to yourself for I suppose."

Crowley's distracted by a particularly long squeeze, the bulky, uncomfortable swell of the eggs inside him shifting right to the end of his body.

"Pretty close now actually," he says. "First one's almost there." 

Aziraphale seems to be finding the flexing squeeze of rounded shapes down his body strangely fascinating, fingers gripping his own knees while he makes encouraging noises that he can't seem to help. Crowley can't smile as a snake, but the sentiment is definitely there. 

"Can I, that is to say, what you mind if I watched?" Aziraphale asks. "Or would that be...would that make you uncomfortable?"

Crowley's not expecting that, he'd thought Aziraphale might be put off by the actual process itself, especially considering there was no actual new life happening here. Instead he seems perfectly happy to be here, to be intimately acquainted with the whole thing, a sort of excited enthusiasm vibrating out of him. Crowley would admit to being a tad surprised about that. Honestly, it doesn't actually bother him that much, he doesn't really feel _naked_ as a snake, not in the way he does when he's human, and if the angel wants to watch the actual process, stretched-out cloaca, slippery fluids and everything, who is Crowley to stop him?

"Nah, it's fine," he decides. "Knock yourself out."

Aziraphale smiles eagerly and adjusts his position a little, so he can see where Crowley's tail is starting to edge up away from his body, cloaca slowly starting to ease open for the heavy, rounded end of the first egg.

"Is it painful?" the angel asks curiously.

Crowley rubs his head back and forth on the floor, just for that extra bit of distracting sensation. The angel's voice is oddly soothing, it's easing back his usual urge to bite something.

"Stings a bit, but s'kind of nice when they come out, to be honest." _'Sting's a bit'_ might be playing it down a little, depending on how big his snake body has decided to go, but he doesn't want to kick the angel in his enthusiasm, by admitting that sometimes it hurts like a fucking bitch.

Crowley's tail folds in an arc, and he can feel the tell-tale stretching burn of the fullest part of the egg trying to make its way out of him. He squeezes, body shifting back and forth to work it out. It resists, lodged tight in the stretch of his cloaca. His gives a long, shuddering hiss and contracts behind it - and it squeezes out in a wash of liquid, leaving shivery echoes of its passing behind.

"Oh," Aziraphale says, eyes fixed in surprise and amazement on the large egg now rolling gently on the towel, it's a silvery grey with black streaks, still wet and glistening. He reaches a hand out, almost instinctively, before making an uncertain noise and looking at Crowley. "May I touch it?" he asks quietly.

It's sweet that he felt like he had to ask, as if Crowley wouldn't let him touch anything and everything he wanted to.

"Yeah, sure," Crowley says, tail already lifting again. "Shift it out of the way, while you're at it, there's three more."

Aziraphale carefully lifts it, making a little noise of surprise at the weight, before he's laying it inside a little ring he's made by twisting three of the fluffy towels together. Which is kind of ridiculously adorable, Crowley is going to have the most well looked after unfertilised eggs that ever existed. 

The second egg is paler and smaller, grey with flecks of black and red, and it slips out more easily than the first, cloaca stretched out enough that it barely takes more than a gentle squeeze to send it slithering across the towels beneath him. Aziraphale has lost his uncertainty, and spends a moment admiring it, fingers cautiously testing the texture, and if Crowley was in a human form right now, he'd probably be blushing at how gentle, how careful Aziraphale is with it. For all that there's nothing important inside it.

His body doesn't seem to care though, because all the old, charred, raw parts of himself, the ones that he keeps crushed down where nothing can hurt them, are strangely warm and sensitive all of a sudden, in a way he doesn't currently have the energy to protest, or wrap in layers of denial.

Aziraphale has shuffled close enough that Crowley can feel his warmth, close enough that the gently rippling end of Crowley's body can twist sideways just a little, to curve against the angel's leg. A silent gesture of permission. Aziraphale makes a quiet, pleased sound and carefully lays a warm hand against the flexing line of Crowley's body, where the third egg is slowly squeezing into position.

"Are you alright, my dear?"

Crowley gives a slow hiss of contentment. Then worries that Aziraphale can't read all the nuance from it.

"Yeah, I'm good, I'm - I'm glad you're here. Company is - it helps." It feels like the angel is doing this with him. Which is...different.

Aziraphale smiles, warm fingers drifting on his head, rubbing gently between his eyes, and Crowley's flickering tongue manages to briefly curl itself around one of the angel's fingers. He tastes like every single thing Crowley has ever cared about.

The third egg is much bigger, it takes long, deep squeezes to slowly push it right up to his cloaca, which Crowley doesn't mind so much, because Aziraphale's soothing voice is murmuring quietly about the patterning on bird's eggs, occasionally stroking the long line of tight scales where Crowley's neck becomes his spine. The angel's voice pauses, briefly, when the egg lodges halfway out, and Crowley gives a deep hiss of annoyed discomfort, before a few hard, burning clenches shove it free in a wash of fluid. The tricky bugger rolls against the loop of his body, accusingly large.

Aziraphale's hand squeezes the base of his spine gently, as if to say 'well done,' and Crowley feels that praise all the way through him. Though he will not writhe on the floor and curl more of his body around the angel, even if he sort of wants to.

Aziraphale's other hand is making long slides along his coils, mostly staying on top, but occasionally straying below, gentler there, but his touch is soothing and encouraging in equal measure and Crowley wants it to stay, wants it to flatten and press down so he can feel it. He carefully pushes into it, and the sweeping motion slows and eventually stops. Until Aziraphale's hand is spread on the low, narrowing curve of his body, where the last egg swells beneath his palm.

Crowley finds himself curving back and forth beneath it, a contented sort of writhe, his whole body warming from that point. It's good, it's good, this is where the angel should be.

"Is this alright?" Aziraphale asks, voice strangely soft.

"Yesss, s'nice." Crowley can feel the press of his fingers every time he squeezes the last egg closer and closer to his cloaca. 

For him, laying eggs is usually a hurried, perfunctory affair, which he's always hissed his way through before in frustrated impatience. Often in some grubby cave, or abandoned shack far away from anyone who might disturb him. Part of him had always stayed on high alert, senses wide open, body arched up in a defensive position, while he squeezed, and clenched, and shoved until it was all over.

This is nothing like that. This is much quieter, and slower, relaxed in a way that's strangely indulgent. It's the first time he's done it in a space he lived in, the first time he's done it with anyone else present. He can feel Aziraphale, the strange, protective warmth of him, he can feel the way he's spread that static edge of himself open and out, in a way that Crowley knows is both warding and defending against disturbances, leaving Crowley to concentrate on the rest. 

It leaves his body feeling overfull and warm, and not just with stupid eggs. He finds himself stretching and looping closer, leaving the fold of his lower half against Aziraphale's thigh and back, until he is affectively being supported by the angel. Aziraphale's hand slides down a little, following the egg, over the cool, stretching width of his scales, holding him so gently, until his fingers are very close to the stretched, flushed opening to his body. Crowley squeezes, slowly, almost sleepily, feels the hard curve reach the over-tight rim of his cloaca and stretch there gently for a moment, before pushing free.

His last egg slides right into Aziraphale's hands, and the image of that - it makes his whole body clench sharply and then relax, in something close to bliss.

And then he's done - he's left empty and writhing gently, body slowly contracting, insides shifting back to the way they should be, cloaca closing, tail curling down.

Crowley's body slips back into its human skin with a sighing hiss of relief. It seems to have continued with the general theme of the day, without his permission, because he has a cunt. It's currently aching with what feel like sense-echoes, in a way that he thinks is deeply bloody unfair. His thighs are sticky-wet, muscles twitching faintly with aftershocks that don't even belong in this body, and his spine feel too long, liquid and flexible. As if the visceral physicality of laying his own eggs has left both his forms in a strange state of flux, where he occupies both at the same time.

"Ugh, Satan, I forgot how messy that was." It suddenly occurs to Crowley that Aziraphale hasn't seen him naked for a very long time - not naked as a human anyway. He doesn't think it counts when you're a snake, what with all your bits and pieces being internal then. But he's tired and all his clothes are much too far away.

Eh, fuck it, the angel just watched him lay eggs - helped him lay eggs even. They've probably already past the 'nudity friends' stage. Aziraphale doesn't seem to care. He's still smiling delightedly at him, as if Crowley's abrupt change was utterly unremarkable. He's gently touching the eggs he'd put together in a pile. They look kind of nice all propped up together on towels, under the gentle bend of plant leaves so they're nicely hidden. But they're close enough that Crowley can see them, and it's probably warm there and everything. 

He mentally slaps himself. The eggs are empty, no matter what his stupid instincts are telling him. And he'll have to get rid of them, because they're crammed full of demonic essence, and it would probably be very bad if someone got hold of them.

"They really are very beautiful," Aziraphale tells him. 

Which scatters all his very sensible thoughts and intentions to pieces. Crowley finds himself blushing - the angel just watched him push four eggs out of his cloaca, and this is the fucking thing that makes him blush. He's a terrible demon, and this is the final nail in the coffin of proof.

Aziraphale shifts a little closer, lets Crowley lean his tired, damp body against the angel's. After a quiet, careful moment of shifting, there's a hand in his hair, drawing through the sweaty mess of it in slow, calming pulls. Crowley's stupid demon hormones - that still probably don't even fucking exist - are going insane, because Aziraphale is being soft and protective, tactile in a way he normally isn't. Crowley's just laid eggs and he can't be expected to deal with this, not with any sort of distance or decorum right now.

"Thank you for letting me stay here, for letting me see that, that was a lovely experience to go through with you." Aziraphale's voice is shaky-soft, grateful and so honest. He's warm and heavy against Crowley's thigh and back, aura a bright, beautiful sting against Crowley's raw, exposed demon essence.

This is the most content he has ever been.

"Not like I'd ever let anyone else do it," Crowley murmurs. Which is perhaps a little more honest than he means, because Aziraphale stops breathing, holds it for a moment, and then exhales slowly.

The fingers in his hair slow, and then stop.

"Is this alright?" the angel asks.

Crowley can't help the breathy laughter, because that may be the stupidest question anyone has ever asked him.

"Yeah, anything you want, angel, anything you want."

Aziraphale breathes out something pleased and soft, and pulls himself closer, arm folded up against Crowley's bare back so he can pull his fingers through Crowley's hair properly, head tipping to rest against his own. The angel is so warm, and he smells so good, and Crowley is so confused about all the things he's not supposed to say to him. Because he's the angel's best friend, they're _best friends_ \- best friends don't confess their love to each other after laying eggs, when they're naked and covered in snake fluids. Best friends don't kiss each other until they can't breathe. They don't curl naked into each other's warmth and demand they stay forever, just like this.

Aziraphale's head tips forward, soft, tickly hair brushing his ear, and there's a rush of warm air against Crowley's temple, a hard press of mouth.

Oh, Satan, he's lost, this is the end for him.

"Is this alright?" Aziraphale asks again, and he still sounds so uncertain. How can he not know? How can he not know by now that Crowley would let him do _anything_.

Every day I've known you that's been alright, Crowley thinks. Since the first time you smiled at me in the garden.

"Yeah, it's good, its all good." Everything is good. There's nothing Aziraphale could want at this point that wouldn't be.

"You're beautiful," Aziraphale says, as if he suddenly desperately wants Crowley to know. "I've never told you, but you are."

"I'm naked, and I'm disgusting," Crowley corrects, and he's shaking, he can feel it, close to the edge of something, and desperate for Aziraphale to shove him straight off.

"I'm still going to kiss you," Aziraphale says quietly, as if he's just decided it - as if he's just decided and is suddenly overwhelmed with it.

Crowley makes a noise like he's dying, before slowly twisting into Aziraphale's body so the angel can prove it.

Aziraphale winds an arm around his naked waist, which is still a little splashed with his own juices. He's probably gross, he's probably thoroughly gross, but the angel leans in anyway, presses his neat, clean clothes all over Crowley's sweaty, naked body and kisses him like he doesn't care. He presses him down into the floor, into those fluffy, damp towels and pushes Crowley's mouth open like he has nowhere else he wants to be.

Crowley wraps both arms around him, purely in self-defence.

They kiss in as many ways as they can, slow indulgent presses of mouth, deep and furious shoves of tongue, quick desperate bites of teeth, and sometimes a messy combinations of all three. Until they're sprawled breathless on the floor together, and Aziraphale is smiling in a way that looks almost painfully happy, mouth red and wet, and bruised, in a way Crowley feels deliciously responsible for.

"You mean so much to me," Aziraphale says quietly, as if Crowley not being able to see him has made him brave. "More than I have ever had the courage to say. And you have had the courage for both of us for far too long. I've let you carry us for too long, because I was afraid, and being afraid became normal until I didn't know quite how to stop. And then you asked me here - you let me stay with you, while you -"

"Aziraphale," Crowley breathes, and he's already shaking his head. Because his first instinct, as always, is to deny it, to refuse to let Aziraphale apologise for this. Even when he's giving him everything he's ever wanted.

Aziraphale carefully lays his fingers over Crowley's protesting mouth, shushes him quiet.

"Every time I think I can no longer be surprised and enthralled by you, you change my mind. Every time I think I cannot possibly love you any more -"

Crowley tugs the heat of Aziraphale's fingers away from his mouth, tangles a hand in that soft, impossible hair and pulls him down, so he can kiss him again, and again. He's not sure he can stop, he's not sure he can do anything in the wake of that confession.

But eventually his own stupid smile breaks them apart.

"I love you," Aziraphale tells him again, as if the first time he said it didn't ruin Crowley enough.

Crowley exhales a desperate laugh against the angel's, warm, enticing mouth. "You have low standards, angel."

"That is absolutely not true," Aziraphale tells him, and kisses him again.


End file.
